Finding Your Inner Health Expert: Learning to Listen Through Yoga
It takes a lot of energy to raise a family, connect with friends and extended family, work (if you do) and maintain health and wellness. Often, in the societal norms we’ve adopted of a busy and productive life, we lose the connection to self and our intuitive ability to live in wellness.
We often look outside ourselves for health and healing answers when the answers we seek are already within. The practice of yoga can guide us to rediscover our natural, holistic health and wellness, improving our own lives and the lives of our family.
Yoga - the connection to body, breath and peace.
The regular practice of yoga can and will provide us with a greater sense of health and wellbeing through many facets:
The movement of the body allows us to shift from the busy, ego-centric mind and the inner critic (the one that tells you, you aren’t good enough, that you need to do more or comes alive when you compare yourself to others) into the awareness of the physical form we embody. It works on this physical form to create strength and resilience to live a life that is full of wellness and function.
In the practice of connecting to breath we move from the fight or flight response we so often live in, to the rest and digest response which allows for healing on a cellular level. While connecting to our breath may seem like a simple, natural process it may not come naturally to some and techniques that have been used for thousands of years are taught in yoga class to enhance this. By enhancing our awareness of breath, we can continually check in with ourselves before things and life get on top of us.
Body scanning is also used in yoga where we take time to scan the body for points of tension and stress and aim, through our yoga practice and breath work, to release these points. Leaving the body and mind in a state of calm and peace.
Yoga is for every body- meaning there is a practice for everyone who chooses it, man, woman and child. It allows for the time to slow down, be on the mat in our own space and exist, however we need to at that moment. It gives us the power to tap into what our bodies are telling and sometimes yelling to us, to delve into our intuitive healing by providing time and space to hear what the body is trying to convey to us.
For children, this time can serve as a way to learn about different ways of responding in the world and to their sometimes overwhelming emotions; for adults it can decrease the anxiety, anger and frustration that often comes with parenting as it guides us to a calmer place in which to function from by working on our nervous system.
For expectant mothers, yoga can provide a sacred space for connecting with ourselves and baby. It can act as birth preparation using breath, strength and awareness. It really is for everybody.
Yoga provides the facets to tap into our innate healing we were all born with and resurfaces the intuitive healing we all have within.